Industrial Education (Classic Reprint)

Excerpt from Industrial Education The American school is under fire - it is always under fire. Just now it is said that its curriculum is overloaded with fads and frills which burden the child and hamper his training in subjects essential to his success in life. Public opinion is critical of a system which makes easy the advancement of a few to positions of commanding influence, but which provides no vocational training for the many who can not afford to remain in school beyond the elementary grades. The demand is for equality of opportunity in education without regard to social rank or wealth or any special privilege, that kind of equality which enables one to become a good American citizen, and which, as I understand it, is established on the ability to earn a decent livelihood and the determination to make one's life worth the living. The instruction given in our public schools is chiefly of two kinds: (1) humanistic, including language and literature, history and civics, and the fine arts; and (2) scientific, including mathematics, geography, physics, chemistry, and biology. Our schools also provide for training in the practical arts which are required in the study of these subjects, preeminently the arts of reading, writing, singing, and drawing. Of late years the attention given to hygiene has begotten systematic training in gymnastics and athletic games. Our school work, however, is bookish a term of reproach with some, but properly understood it stands above criticism. That which is worth knowing about human progress is for the most part contained in books. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.